Table Of ContentIslam and Modernity
JSLAM and MODERNITY
Muslim Intellectuals Respond
Edited by
.
John Cooper, Ronald L Nettler and Mohamed Mahmoud
I.B.Tauris
Publishers
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Published in 1998 by
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Copyright © 1998John Cooper, Ronald L. Nettler and Mohamed Mahmoud
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_
Contents
Introduction: The Culture of Modernity in Islam and the
Middle East
DEREK HOPWOOD
1 Nature, Hyperbole, and the Colonial State:
Some Muslim Appropriations of European Modernity in
Late Nineteenth-Century Urdu Literature
JAVED MAJEED
2 The Limits of the Sacred:
The Epistemology of'Abd al-Karim Soroush
JOHN COOPER
3 Islamic Scholar and Religious Leader:
Shaikh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti
ANDREAS CHRISTMANN
4 Islamic History, Islamic Identity and the Reform of
Islamic Law: The Thought of Husayn Ahmad Amin
NADIA ABU-ZAHRA
5 Mahmud Muhammad Taha's Second Message of Islam
and his Modernist Project
MOHAMED MAHMOUD
6 Mohamed Talbi's Ideas on Islam and Politics:
A Conception of Islam for the Modern World
RONALD L. NETTLER
7 Can Modern Rationality Shape a New Religiosity?
Mohamed Abedjabri and the Paradox of Islam and
Modernity
ABDOU FILALI-ANSARI 156
8 Islam, Europe, the West:
Meanings-at-Stake and the Will-to Power
MOHAMMED ARKOUN 172
9 Divine Attributes in the Qur’an: Some Poetic Aspects
NASR HAMID ABU ZAID 190
Bibliography 212
Index 223
Notes on the Contributors
Nadia Abu-Zahra is an anthropologist. She received her PhD from
Oxford University and has since done fieldwork in The Sahel of
T unisia and in Cairo. Her articles and books cover various areas of the
Middle East; currently she writes on Muslim society. Her most recent
book is The Pure and Powerful (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1997).
Nasr Hamid Rizk Abu-Zaid received his university education in the
Faculty of Arts at the University of Cairo, where he received his PhD
in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1981. Since then he has been teaching
in the same department, reaching the level of full professor in 1995.
From 1985-9 he was Visiting Professor at the Osaka University of
Foreign Studies, and from 1995 he has been Visiting Professor at the
University of Leiden. In May 1993 he was awarded the Republican
Order of Merit for his services to Arab culture by the President of
Tunisia. He has published extensively in Arabic on Quranic exegesis
and Islamic law, as well as on the critical study of Muslim religious
discourse; one of his works, Naqd al-khitab al-dini, has been translated
into German by Cherifa Magdi as Kritik der religiosen Diskurses
(Frankfurt-am-Main: Dipa Verlag, 1996).
Mohammed Arkoun was born in Taourirt-Mimoun (Algeria). He
studied at the University of Algiers before taking up the post of assistant
professor at the Sorbonne (1961-9). He received his doctorat at the
Sorbonne in 1969, and went on to occupy the post of professor there
from 1970-92. He is presently Emeritus professor at the Sorbonne,
Paris III, and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in
London. He is also the director of the scholarly journal Arabica, and a
jury member of the Aga Khan Award for Achitecture. He has published
many articles and books in Arabic, French and English; his books
include: Vhumanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siecle (2nd ed., Paris: J. Vrin, 1982),
Critique de la raison islamique (Paris, 1984), Lectures du Coran (2nd ed.,
Vlll ISLAM AND MODERNITY
Tunis, 1991), Rethinking Islam: common questions, uncommon answers
(Boulder, Colorado, 1993), Lapensee arabe (Paris: PUF, 1996).
Andreas Christmann is a graduate student of the University of Leipzig
where he is completing his PhD dissertation in the Department of
Religious Studies. In 1995-7 he was the Volkswagen Visiting Fellow
at St Antony's College, Oxford. He did fieldwork in Syria in 1995 and
1996 on the observance of Ramadan and the use made of various media
for the dissemination of Islamic teachings during that month. His main
interest is the analysis of Islamic discourse and its impact on religious
practice. He has published articles on contemporary Islamic rituals and
the Muslim media in German and English.
John Cooper studied at the University of Oxford and the traditional
religious schools in Qum and Tehran. For the last seven years he has
been the E. G. Browne Lecturer in Persian Studies at the Faculty of
Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research interests
include Islamic jurisprudence, philosophy, and mysticism, and he has
published numerous translations of classical and modern texts from
Arabic and Persian, including the first volume of al-Tabari's Commentary
on the Qur’an (Oxford: OUP, 1986), as well as articles on aspects of the
history of the Islamic religious sciences.
Abdou Filali-Ansari was born in Morocco in 1946. He obtained his
doctorate from the University of Dijon with a dissertation on the
philosophy of Spinoza and Bergson. He has taught philosophy at the
Faculte des Lettres in Rabat (1970-3), and has held posts in the
Moroccan administration. In 1985 he was appointed Director of the
King ‘Abd al-Aziz Foundation for Islamic Studies and the Human
Sciences in Casablanca. Since 1994 he has been the editor of Prologues:
Revue maghrebine du livre. Among his works are articles and books on
contemporary Islamic thought, and a French translation of'Ali ‘Abd
al-Raziq’s Islam and the Foundation of Political Power (Paris: La
Decouverte/Casablance: Le Fennec, 1995).
Notes on the Contributors ix
Derek Hopwood is Reader in Middle Eastern Studies at the University
of Oxford, Fellow of St Antony’s College, and Director of the Middle
East Centre. He is also President of the European Association of
Middle East Studies. Among his books are: Egypt: Politics and society
1945-90 (1991), Syria 1945-1986: Politics and society (1988), Habib
Bourguiba of Tunisia: the tragedy of longevity (1992), and The Russian Presence
in Syria and Palestine 1843-1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (1969).
Mohamed Mahmoud has taught at the Faculty of Arts at the
University of Khartoum and at the Oriental Institute at the University
of Oxford. At present he teaches at the Department of Religion at
Tufts University. His research interests include the Qur'an and modem
Islam.
Javed Majeed is currently lecturer in the Department of South Asia at
SO AS, University of London. He graduated from Magdalen College,
Oxford, where he also did his DPhil. He is the author of Ungoverned
Imaginings: James Mill’s The History of British India and Orientalism
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), and also of a number of articles in
scholarly journals and chapters in edited books. He is the co-author
with Christopher Shackle of Hali’s Musaddas: the flow and ebb of Islam
(Delhi: OUP, 1997).
Ronald L. Nettler is Fellow in Muslim-Jewish Relations at the Oxford
Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Hebrew Centre Lecturer in
Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor
in Oriental Studies at Mansfield College, Oxford. He does research
and has published widely on modern and medieval Islamic religious
thought, as well as on the history of Muslim-Jewish relations.
